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The Spreadsheet Revolution begins

For 35 years, the spreadsheet has reigned as the number one tool used by businesses all over the world. It’s importance cannot be understated as even Microsoft’s spreadsheet enjoys more than 500 million users today. However, for how amazing this tool has been,

the spreadsheet is now the biggest bottleneck to business productivity.

Companies are constantly battling old information and taking actionable decisions off of what is typically the wrong information. During an era when businesses understand the benefits of real time information and the importance of split second reactions, the spreadsheet is now holding everybody back.

On average, an employee will waste more than 2 months per year managing, formatting, and analyzing spreadsheets. These inefficient steps are riddled with human error yet users continue to rely on these same processes as a basis for running their companies (See Study). The missed opportunity costs in making decisions off of old information or wrong information is costing companies hundreds of thousands of dollars every year and is a common issue often related to spreadsheets.

Factivate was designed to keep up with how a business operates within a spreadsheet ecosystem and acknowledges the benefits of real time information and just-in-time reactions. The cloud-based platform enables users to import their data into an intuitive, familiar spreadsheet-like interface to conduct robust data analysis. In sharp contrast to the complex and expensive B.I. tools on the market today, Factivate is so easy to use that if you know how to use Excel then you know 95% of what you need to know to use Factivate and pull your cloud-based data into a familiar interface for analysis and manipulation.

Juan Porras, CEO and co-founder of Factivate, mentioned that every company he spoke to faced major pains related to spreadsheets, regardless of the company size. In speaking with a VP of marketing at a major apparel company, for example, he learned that she would spend a few hours every day analyzing her spreadsheets and downloading information from outside sources; all while hoping that she wouldn’t miss anything important. During the holidays, unfortunately, she missed a few rows of information while going through her daily spreadsheet routine. As a result, she didn’t react in time to the change in information, she couldn’t meet her holiday quota, and she was almost fired.

The primary use for Factivate has been in sales, marketing and business operations. While all of the company’s clients use spreadsheets differently, there are common themes as to how they’re managing their processes, which can be applied throughout different verticals.

To use Factivate, companies pay a monthly subscription based on their number of users. The service is affordable enough that even individuals inside a company can pay for it out of pocket.

“We’re really excited to learn how our tool is helping employees pay closer attention to the right data while automating manual spreadsheet practices,” said Porras. “Our focus on making Big Data and B.I. easy, has shown us that we haven’t even scratched the surface of Factivate’s potential in the market. The future is very exciting for us.”

Factivate is a software company part of the Google for Entrepreneurs community in Durham, NC. Factivate provides business users with a cloud-based data analytics platform that can sync with different online tools to create automated, real-time spreadsheet reports and web dashboards with just-in-time business reactions. The result of our intelligent spreadsheet is accurate data analysis that drives better business decisions while reducing manual spreadsheet report time and errors by a factor of 150+ hours/employee/year. Factivate requires no learning curve or programming knowledge. In sharp contrast to the complex and expensive business intelligence tools on the market today, if you know spreadsheets, then you know 95% of what you need to use Factivate–we’ve got the rest covered.